


things fall apart

by thoughtsthatfester



Category: Lizzie Bennet Diaries
Genre: F/M, LBD Ficathon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-19
Updated: 2013-08-28
Packaged: 2017-12-24 01:21:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/933453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thoughtsthatfester/pseuds/thoughtsthatfester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>fic prompt #36: What happens when Lizzie’s company falls victim to statistics, like so many other startups, and fails?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The first year is amazing. Her company grows more rapidly than she could have ever anticipated. She gets more requests than she can handle on her own and she ends up hiring six employees. They expand offices three times during the first year. They start in her apartment but once they move to an actual office space, she breaks her lease and moves in with her boyfriend. 

That’s another thing that makes the first year so amazing. William Darcy is everything she could have ever asked for. She realizes soon into the relationship that there is no one more suited for her and that she is going to spend the rest of her life with him. Months ago, something like that would have scared her, but she’s thrilled by it. She catches herself doodling ‘Mrs. Darcy’ into her notebook during a meeting with investors. She dreams about their future children one night and instead of being frightened by how fast it is moving and how serious everything is. She never knew she could feel something so deeply and so fully as she felt about William. They can’t sleep apart and they end up in the same apartment three months into their relationship.

It works. Everything works and everything is going so well between them. She’s so afraid that she’s going to wake up from this dream and be back at home living with her parents without a company and a boyfriend. She savors each moment during the whirlwind year.

She feels fulfilled and she feels like she is doing good work and that she is going to make a difference. She loves everything about her life. She loves getting up and going to work and she loves leaving at the end of the day to come home to the most amazing boyfriend. There is nothing she would change about the year, not even the ridiculous hints about marriage and babies from her mother or their failure of a ski trip. 

Everything happens so quickly and a few weeks after her twenty-sixth birthday she ends up tearfully accepting a proposal from William. He takes her on another San Francisco tour and proposes to her on the water’s edge. It’s beautiful and romantic and heartfelt and everything she expected from William Darcy.

They keep things to themselves for a little while. It’s not that they don’t want to share their happy news with their friends and family, but they want to have something that’s just theirs, at least for a little while. 

At first, she thinks about how everyone is going to react. Her mother will be pleased but her father would warn her and advise her to be cautious. Jane would congratulate her sincerely and Lydia would tease her. Gigi would squeal and call Fitz, and then the both of them would take credit for all of it. Caroline would congratulate the two of them with a fake smile. It doesn’t matter because they’re happy and in love and certain that they are ready to be married.

The one person’s opinion that she cares about is the one person’s she shouldn’t. Her thoughts don’t go directly to Darcy’s Aunt Catherine, but once they get there, she can’t stop thinking about it. Catherine will, of course, insist on a pre-nuptial agreement. That doesn’t bother her, not really. She understands why it’s important. She has a business down and she knows that it’s good to protect herself and her (limited) assets. She knows that they’ll never need it. She knows that everyone says that too, but she’s certain they’ll never need it.

Shortly after they make their engagement public, she takes a good look at her books. That’s when everything comes crashing down.


	2. Chapter 2

She dives into her financials and she realizes she has been so blind. She was so focused on the creative side that she neglected the business side. Had she focused more on the financials or hired someone to do it, she would have seen how rapidly she was expanding and how bad of a thing that could be. She thought rapid growth was a good thing. She’s sure she couldn’t have been doing everything wrong, but it seems like she was. She expanded too rapidly and things are cooling down and she sees that everything is about to come crashing down. 

She calls the only person she thinks will be able to help her. It’s the last thing she wants to do but she has no choice. The sinking feeling in her stomach only grows as the phone rings.

“Caroline Lee,” the voice on the other end answers with measured cheeriness.

“Caroline, it’s Lizzie Bennet.” 

“Oh Lizzie. Hello.”

“Caroline, can I ask you for a huge favor?” she asks. She’s so nervous and feels like she is going to puke and she wants to get this over with right away.

“Sure, but I can’t promise I’ll say yes.”

“Well, er, I was wondering if I could send you the financials for my company. I was going through the numbers and I think things are off. I’m not sure and I want someone in finance to look at them.”

“You don’t have someone doing your financials?”

“No. I didn’t think I needed someone.”

She hears a sigh through the phone and she knows exactly what Caroline is thinking. She is being judged. She isn’t cut out to run her own company. Caroline must be laughing about how Lizzie could be so stupid as to start a company without a financial plan or someone to manage her finances. 

“Sure. Do you have my email? Send it to me. I’ll look it over and give you a call.”

She breathes a sigh of relief, “Thanks Caroline.” She feels like crying but she doesn’t. She sends Caroline the email and she waits. She edits instead and works on a project that could help make them money.

Money. That’s the real problem. Her videos are popular, but they aren’t making money. She’s been too willing to accept jobs that don’t pay well and she’s gotten herself into this. She was so focused on the creative side and doing the work she loved. She never wanted to say no to a project because of money. She wanted to make things that tickled her fancy, not that lined her bank account.

That’s the problem too. She loves her work so much that she’s willing to do it for free. She did do it for free before Lizzie Bennet Productions began. She hates worrying about money. She just wants to do good work. She wants to make videos and not have to worry about money. 

Money. It all comes back to money. She had student loans and she shouldn’t have gotten herself into this mess into the first place. It was ridiculous that she started her own company. She should have accepted a job at Pemberley Digital and worked for a salary. She shouldn’t have taken such a risk, especially when she had other options.

She never wanted to be a CEO. She wanted to make videos and produce cool media and make a cool contribution to the culture. She wanted to make the things she wanted without having to answer to someone. She grew too fast and took too big of a risk and now she’s drowning.

She doesn’t regret this year. It has been the best year of her life but she hates it right now. She’s supposed to be happy and in love (which she is) but she shouldn’t be worrying about her company. She should be planning her wedding and stressing about her mother’s suggestions. She should be picking a place to honeymoon, not worrying about what’s going to happen with the pre-nup that she is going to have to sign. She knows that William won’t make her sign one, but she wants to, she has to, especially when everything is falling to pieces. 

She tosses and turns all night and William keeps asking her what’s wrong but she can’t tell him, not yet. She drinks enough coffee to get herself through the day and she tries to focus at work. Everything is worse when she’s sitting in her office with her six employees that are all dependent on her and she feels terrible that she might have to let them down.

It’s around lunchtime when Caroline finally calls.

“Lizzie, it’s Caroline. I looked at your financials.”

“And?”

“Lizzie, I’m not going to lie to you. Your company does not look good. You had a good start, but you’ve neglected it since then. It really looks bad.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Honestly, I don’t think so. I don’t know how you missed this, but it’s bad Lizzie Bennet. Perhaps you could see if Darcy will buy your company, because you simply cannot save your business.”

There it is. She knew it was coming, but she hoped she would be okay. She hoped that she could have saved things. She feels something inside her break and she starts to cry. If she had anything left, she would have felt embarrassed crying on the phone with Caroline Lee. “What do you recommend?” she gets out.

“You need to shut it down. You won’t be able to pay your employees next month or cover any of your costs. Just cut your losses and save yourself.”

“Okay,” she says through the tears.

“Look, I’m not telling you what to do, but that’s my professional opinion. I’m not in the digital media business, just the financial consulting one. Talk to Darcy and see what he says. And Lizzie, I’m really sorry.”

“Thank you, Caroline.”

“You’re welcome.”

She hears the click of the phone and she really starts to lose it. She locks herself in her office and sobs. She feels like she is going to throw up and she does. She runs to the bathroom and she doesn’t care what people think. She hopes people will think she’s pregnant instead of devastated because she’s not sure what she’s going to say when her employees ask.

She throws up and stops crying. She tells her employees that she feels sick and she is going home and it’s the absolute truth. She has never felt this sick. She is sick with worry and dread and guilt.

She gets home and enters the empty apartment. She cries in the shower and collapses into their California king and waits for her fiancé to get home. She’s not sure what she’s going to tell him or how she’s going to do and how everything is going to work out. He’ll be supportive and amazing because he always is, but that does nothing to ease the pit in her stomach.


	3. Chapter 3

She waits for William to get home and spends the whole time thinking about what she is going to say to him. She can’t really think of how to bring it up in conversation. She doesn’t want to just say “hey my company is on the verge of collapse and about to fail,” because that’s so abrupt and she can’t say that. She doesn’t now what she’s going to do or going to say but she knows how he’s going to react. He’s Darcy and of course he’s going to be understanding and helpful and he’ll probably make everything better but she’s still scared to tell him.

She doesn’t hear him come in. He enters their room and starts to talk to her about what they’re doing for dinner and that’s when she notices that he’s home. She didn’t hear the elevator or his footsteps.

“Lizzie,” he says again after she doesn’t respond, “what do you want for dinner?”

“I don’t know,” she croaks out. Her voice is shot from crying and she sounds terrible.

He turns to face her, his tie undone, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she lies. He shoots her a look, “I just don’t want to talk about it yet, okay? Not yet.”

“Fine. We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. How about we order Chinese and I draw you a bath?”

She nods. She doesn’t tell him that she just showered because she appreciates the gesture so much. He enters the bathroom and she hears the water turn on. His tie if off by now and he’s unbuttoning his shirt. She crawls off the bed and walks into the bathroom because she can’t look at him. She knows she’s going to blurt it out and she doesn’t want that.

She climbs into the hot water and closes her eyes. She can hear him rummaging around in the bedroom and then, on the phone a few minutes later, ordering the Chinese food. She hears him order her favorite dish but she’s not sure she’s going to be able to stomach it. The water is comfortably hot and it feels amazing but it’s not relaxing her because she’s so tense and stressed and her problem isn’t something that can be fixed by a bubble bath.

He brings her a glass of wine, sauvignon blanc, but she doesn’t touch it. It’s sitting there when he returns with her bathrobe, fresh from the towel warmer, and tells her that their dinner is there. She climbs out and into her bathrobe. It’s warm and soft and feels like a hug and she needs that right now.

She follows him into the kitchen where he has the dinner plated on the counter. She takes the seat next to him and watches as her devours his dinner. He’s starving because she skipped lunch so he doesn’t notice her playing with her food instead of eating it, at least not at first.

When he does is when it all falls apart.

“You haven’t touched your food at all, or your wine. Did you have lunch?

“No,” she can’t lie to him. There’s no point.

“You need to eat something.”

“I don’t think I can stomach anything right now, okay?” It comes out harsher than she intended and he takes a big gulp of his wine.

“Lizzie, can I ask you a question without you freaking out?” She nods because she doesn’t trust her voice. “Are you pregnant?”

She starts to laugh. He is so concerned and she assumed that her employees would think that, but not her fiancé. “No, I’m not. William, God, no, if I had gotten pregnant I would tell you, I promise and I would never be upset about that, never.”

“Then what is it?”

“My company is about to go under.” It comes out so much more easily than she was ever expecting.

“Excuse me?”

“I, I went to look through my financials because I know that when we tell everyone your aunt is going to demand a prenup and I’m fine with that and I wanted to be prepared and know where I stood and I realized how bad things have gotten.”

“I thought things were going really well for your company,” he scratches his head. He’s been watching her company as a rival and as a boyfriend and he thought it had been going well. She had early investors and clients and she was doing good work. He thought she had expanded too quickly, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, he was just conservative when it came to expansion.

“They were, or at least I thought they were. I don’t know. I screwed up big time. I didn’t want to turn down projects I loved just because they didn’t pay well so I made a series of bad decisions and now we’re almost out of money and I am going to have to shut it down,” the tears break free and she is full out sobbing.

“Shit Lizzie,” he says pulling her into his arms. He never curses and that’s how she’s knows it’s really bad. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault. It’s mine. Don’t even try to tell me it’s not because it is. I’m a failure. I failed,” she says and the tears break out. She had been holding them back so well. She thought she had cried out all her tears this afternoon but she hasn’t.

“You’re not a failure,” he whispers into her hair, “your start-up failed. Over ninety percent of start-ups fail. This doesn’t define you or make you a failure.”

“My start-up failed, I think that makes me a failure,” she sobs into his shirt.

“No you’re not. Lizzie, you have made such amazing videos this year. Your work has made a big difference. You can’t reduce your entire experience with Lizzie Bennet Productions to spreadsheets. Your videos really connected with people.”

“That doesn’t matter. That doesn’t matter to my six employees, all of whom are going to be out of jobs. They have no idea. I am so stupid. I had zero work experience at any level and I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Why on earth did I think I could run my own company?”

“Because you are good at what you do. You do great work and you have a strong audience and a great relationship with them. You are a victim of statistics.”

“No, I’m not. I’m an idiot. I thought I could run my own business without having anyone to manage the business side of it. I should have brought in Charlotte or a Charlotte substitute. I didn’t make practical decisions. I followed my heart and did whatever projects appealed to me instead of projects that made practical financial sense. I was in no position to do that. You don’t always do that and you’re well established and much bigger than I was. I thought that I was going to be able to do whatever I wanted and that the success would just come.”

“Oh, Lizzie,” he whispered into her hair.

“This just sucks and I hate this.”

“It’s alright. We’ll figure all of this out, I promise.”


	4. Chapter 4

After she stops crying, they sit down to talk. She knows that he wants to help her and she’s decided that she’s going to let him. It’s not just about her and that’s why she’s going to let him. She has employees and there’s more to worry about than what people will think of her for taking her boyfriend’s help.

“Let’s make a plan,” is all he says once they’re seated in the living room. It’s good to pick a neutral location when there might be a fight. She doesn’t anticipate a fight, but she doesn’t like discussing serious issues in the bedroom.

“Okay. I could look for more investors. The only problem is that I won’t be able to find more investors with my current business outlook.”

“I could invest.” He offers. She knows that he means it because he wouldn’t offer if he weren’t one hundred percent serious.

“It’s not a smart business decision to invest in failing companies. I don’t want a handout, I want a solution.” She knows he’ll do anything for her, but she doesn’t want a handout. She has a little bit of pride left and she wants to keep it.

“Alright, what are your other options?” He’s being patient and diplomatic and it’s making all of this a little bit better.

“I could liquidate everything and just end it.” It seems like a good option to her because this is stressing her out so much and she doesn’t want to drag out this terrible thing.

“Is that what you want?”

“I don’t know. I just want this nightmare to be over. I didn’t know something that I thought was going so great could take such a terrible turn.” She feels defeated and tired and it’s only been a couple of days. It is only going to get worse.

“I have another solution. I could buy it. It could become a part of Pemberley Digital.”

“William-“ she starts.

“Look, from a business standpoint, it makes sense. I can buy your company and restructure it. You have a nice following and your videos have a lot of views. It would be an asset. You could come in and run the department.”

“I don’t want to work for you. It’s inappropriate to be engaged to my boss.” It just feels wrong and would make her feel dirty. She loves Pemberley Digital and she admires it and she would love to work there is anyone but Darcy owned it.

“Please, just think about it. I want you to think about it for me. I have another solution, but I’m not sure if you’re going to like it.” He puts his hand on hers and the gesture comforts her so much.

“What is it?” At this point, she’ll entertain almost any idea.

“I can buy the company and take on your employees, but you don’t have to work for Pemberley. You don’t have to work. You know you don’t need to work. We’ll be planning our wedding and dealing with all of that and you’ll have no shortage of things to do.”

She takes a deep breath. “I don’t feel comfortable not working.” It means a lot to her to be using her degree. She worked so hard to get it and it would feel like a waste not to use it. 

“I know you don’t but you also don’t feel comfortable having me as your boss.” To him, it’s simple. But, it’s not 1940 and she wants to work.

“We’ve talked about this before. I would consider not working once we have children, but I’m not going to think about children until I’m thirty. I just don’t know what to do.” The thought of children makes her happy right now but she pushes it down. She’s feeling depressed and sentimental because she’s going to get married to the best man in the world and having a child would give her life meaning right now. She doesn’t want to make a rash decision so she ignores the thought. She will reconsider when she is thirty but not before.

“I want you to buy up my company and save my employees and all of that, but I cannot work for you, but I also cannot not work.”

“Okay. I have another solution. Non-profits. You can make videos for charities and schools. You can make videos about the issues you care about. You’ve been talking about how you wanted to make videos about emotional abuse for schools. You can do all of that.” 

“I guess,” she sighs. He’s laid out options for her and she feels so much better. 

“There’s the office upstairs that we don’t use and you can work from home. You can take on clients that you want as a freelancer. You won’t have to worry about running a company, just making your videos.”

“I need to think about this. I think I need to be alone.” She doesn’t say that to be mean or to insult him but it comes out wrong.

“Would you like me to sleep in guest room?” 

“No. No. No. It’s fine. I just want to be alone for a little while right now to think about all of this. I’m going to go sit down with a legal pad and make a pros and cons list or something like that.”

“Okay, I’m going to go read in bed,” he kisses her on the forehead and grabs a book from the sofa table. “Come in when you’re done. We don’t have to talk about it any more tonight, okay?”

“Okay. I love you so much, thank you.”

“You’re welcome. I love you too, so much.”

She sits in the living room for a while making lists and scribbling her ideas all over the pages of her legal pad. She starts to cry again when she thinks about her company failing. She wants to talk to someone else but she also wants to be alone.

She decides then and there in the living room that she is going to go home. She takes her laptop out of her bag and books a flight home. She wants to talk to her father and she’s going to. She’ll tell William in the morning but for now, she’s going to crawl into bed with her fiancé and try to sleep


	5. Chapter 5

She tells Darcy in the morning over coffee that she’s going home. She sees panic flash in his eyes before she places a hand on his and tells him that it’s only because she wants to speak with her father. She wants to sit in his study and smell the pipe smoke on his jacket and have him reassure her that everything is going to be okay.

She goes to work and pretends like everything is okay. It works. She loads up her laptop with footage to edit on the plane. She’ll only be gone for a couple of days, but she wants to do work. That’s the best thing that she could do right now.

Darcy drives her to the airport at the end of the day and they talk about everything except the problems with her company and the options they talked about. She’s grateful because she doesn’t want to cry again. 

She sits in the airport terminal and tries to edit but it gives her a headache and she turns off her laptop. When she gets to the counter, she finds that Darcy upgraded her to first class. She normally hates when he does things like this but she smiles at the gesture. She boards the plane and drifts off to sleep in her cushy first class seat.

She’s landing before she knows it and heads directly to the taxi line. She’s only got a carry-on full of clothes and her purse. This trip should only last a day or two. Hopefully, that’s all the time she needs to figure out what she’s going to do.

Her phone is dead by the time she gets in the cab so she had nothing to do but think. Thinking gets her upset and by the time she is pulling up to her parents’ house, tears have pricked the corners of her eyes. She tries to compose herself as she rings the doorbell, but she still looks upset when her mother answers the door.

“Lizzie!” she cries as she answers the door, “what’s wrong? You and that William Darcy haven’t broken up, have you?”

“No, no Mom, nothing like that,” she says wiping the tears form the corners of her eyes. “I just needed to come home for a couple days to talk to you guys.”

“Are you pregnant?” she asks with a little too much excitement.

“No, Mom. I’m not. Can I just come in and we can all talk?”

“Sure, sure,” she ushers her in. “Thomas! Thomas! Lizzie is here. She has to talk to us about something important. She’s not pregnant, don’t worry! Just get down here!”

Minutes later, they’re sitting in the living room and Lizzie is telling them about her problems. It’s hard and she cries through a lot of it. They sit there in silence and just listen to her. When she’s finished, Mrs. Bennet excuses herself to her room. She doesn’t say anything and Lizzie is grateful. 

Her father invites her into his study to continue to conversation. She’s never been so grateful for the familiar smell of the pipe smoke and the sight of trains.

“What are your options?” he asks.

“I can sell my company to William and he can absorb my employees but I refuse to work there. I know it’s an amazing company, but it would make me feel sleazy because I’m engaged to the boss.”

“You’re engaged?” He looks up from his pipe.

“Yeah, I forgot the mention that. We were going to wait a while before we told everyone.” She feels guilty that she hasn’t told him yet, but they agreed to wait a while.

“How long have the two of you been engaged?” he asks, filling his pipe.

“Just a couple of weeks. I was going to tell you soon. That’s what prompted this. I was looking through my financials to get ready to the pre-nuptial agreement that I’m going to sign.”

“He’s making you sign something?” He asks setting his pipe down.

“He’s not making me sign anything. I want to sign something. Let’s just move on from this. I need to figure out what I’m going to do.”

“Alright, what are you thinking?”

“I think that I’m going to let William buy the company and restructure it. It will save my employees. It’s better than just letting my company fail and letting down my employees.”

“What about you?”

“He thinks I should work for a non-profit or just freelance.”

“Why can’t you work for another media company?”

“There aren’t any other competitors in San Francisco. I can’t move and you see why. My life is there with him and I’m going to have to make a sacrifice. I would love to work for another company but I can’t do that unless I move.”

“It looks like your choice should be easy then.”

“I know. It should be easy but I don’t know. Don’t rich men’s wives work for non-profits? Even if I freelance, I’m still dependent on William. It’s going to take time to get settled in no matter what I do. And I get it, we’re engaged, even if people don’t know, but it still feels weird. I understand that we’re going to be married and sharing everything, but it still feels weird to me.”

“It doesn’t bother you that it feels weird?” He’s trying to play devil’s advocate and make things easier for her.

“It does. That’s the problem. I know that once we’re married with children it’s going to be different, but I don’t want to be judged for it now.”

“You’ve never worried about being judged before, why now?

“I don’t even know. It’s just that I want people to take me seriously. I’m not sure if they’ll take me seriously if they just see me as a rich man’s wife dabbling in making videos.”

“They’ll see that that’s not the case once they get to know you.”

“I know, I know, but it’s still uncomfortable for me.”

“It sounds like you’re going to be uncomfortable with whatever you end up choosing.”

“I know. That’s why I’m going to choose to freelance and then do pro-bono work for charities I care about.”

He kissed her forehead, “That sounds like the best possible choice that you could make.”

“Thanks Dad. I feel good about it, well, as good as I can. I’m going to go to sleep. Thank you so much though. I feel a lot better.”

Tomorrow, she thinks, she’ll go home and tell Darcy her decision. She feels good with her choice and knows that he will too.


	6. Chapter 6

The next day, she gets on the plane and goes home. Over dinner, she tells William her choice and he’s supportive as usual. He starts the process of buying her company within the week. 

She breaks it to her employees one morning that they’re being bought. They’re not as concerned as she expected. They’re actually happy that Pemberley Digital is buying them. It’s not like they disliked working for Lizzie because they loved it, but her start-up cannot compete with the amenities that his company offers. 

It’s a relief that they’re happy to be bought. Within a month, just before she was about to run out of money, they are happily working at Pemberley Digital and she is setting up an office in the upper level of their apartment. 

It’s hard at first, working from home. She finds herself cleaning out their closet and rearranging their bedroom before getting to work. She starts planning her wedding and tries to figure out a good time to tell everyone about her engagement. Once she gets started, it’s easier. She starts with non-profits and charity fundraisers. They’re happy to have her make videos for their events and she feels great about doing it. Shockingly, she feels more fulfilled than ever before. She even ends up making more money than before with no overhead.

She should have been doing this from the start, but she’s glad she got the experience of starting her own company. She learned a lot, but mostly that she hates worrying about things not related to the creative aspect of business. She loves the work she’s doing now. It’s so much less stressful and she likes the flexibility. She never would have guessed things would work out this way.

They have a big party for their engagement, at William’s request. It’s nice to have all their friends and family together in San Francisco. They get married that November and honeymoon in Italy. She returns and finds herself filled with inspiration. That January, she launches a modern adaption of William’s favorite Fitzgerald novel. It finds a huge audience and she achieves more success than any program since her own video blogs.

Marriage is the most rewarding thing she’s ever done. Once they reach their sixth month anniversary, they decide it’s time to buy a real house. They buy a large old Victorian for more money than she thinks anyone should ever spend on anything, but it’s perfect. The third floor is converted into her office. It’s perfect and has a wonderful view of the city.

It’s a great place to work and she’s happier than she’s ever been. It’s weird to think that less than a year ago, she thought her life was crumbling down. They fall into an easy routine; her schedule allows her more time to travel and they take trips around the world.

She wants to enjoy every minute of their time together because everything is going to change once they have children. Since the day she got married, her mother has been pestering her for grandchildren. She is staying firm on her plan for not having kids until she’s thirty until she’s puking one morning.

At first she thinks she ate bad egg rolls the night before but it happens again the next day. They haven’t been trying. They’ve been actively not trying. They religiously use birth control and have agreed to do so until her thirtieth birthday.

The best thing about working freelance is that she can run out to the pharmacy in the middle of the day and buy seven pregnancy tests. She takes them one after another and gets the same result on all of them.

Positive. It’s a life changing result. It’s like finding out her company was failing, but completely different. Everything is going to change and she cannot figure out how she’s going to tell him. Instead of sadness or devastation at this life changer, she is bursting at the seams with happiness.

He’s going to be thrilled no matter what, but she wants to do it in a really sweet way. She doesn’t do any work the rest of the day. Instead, she makes an appointment with her gynecologist, orders every baby book off Amazon, lights candles, orders Chinese food.

He comes home to a romantic dinner, with candles and their favorite dishes. He notices that something is wrong or at least different when he sits down.

“Have I forgotten something important?” he asks, “I don’t have anything in my calendar.”

“Nope, you’re not forgetting something, but you might want to add this night to your calendar.”

“Well,” he says taking a bite of his lo mein, “I’m curious now. Please tell me.”

“Okay, so I know we’ve talked about not having kids until I turned thirty and that we haven’t been trying, but I threw up the past two morning after you left for work and I went and took seven pregnancy tests and we’re having a baby!”

He’s quiet for a second as he processes it, “we’re having a baby?” he half asks, half repeats.

“Yes! We’re having a baby!”

Within the seconds, she finds herself wrapped in his arms, pulled into a big hug. “I love you so much,” he whispers into her hair.

“I love you too,” she breathes.

The next morning, when she is able to sleep in as late as she wants, she’s so grateful to be freelancing from home. Her life hadn’t turned out exactly how she had planned, but she’s happy and that’s all that matters. The company she thought would be her key to happiness and success failed miserably but she found her happiness somewhere else. She was certain she didn’t want a baby until she turned thirty but she’s thrilled to be pregnant three years ahead of schedule. It doesn’t matter that things didn’t go according to the plan she had for herself or the vision of her life she had in her head.


End file.
